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New Warriors (Earth-616)
__TOC__ Official Team Names: The New Warriors Team Nicknames: The Warriors Status Team Status: Active Base of Operations: Currently: Mobile across United States. Formerly: Ambrose Building in Manhattan, the "Crash-Pad" near the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan (a closed Taylor Foundation factory), a mothballed firehouse in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) section of NYC. Organization Founders: Night Thrasher, Nova, Marvel Boy, Firestar, Namorita, Speedball Team Leaders: Currently: Night Thrasher. Formerly: Justice, Namorita, Silhouette, and Bandit Active Members: Night Thrasher (Dwayne Taylor), Nova (Richard Rider), Namorita (Nita Prentiss; formerly known as Kymaera), Speedball (Robbie Baldwin), Microbe, and Debrii Inactive Members: Aegis, Bandit. Bolt, Dagger, Darkhawk, Firestar, Helix, Hindsight, Justice (formerly known as Marvel Boy), Alex Power, Rage, Scarlet Spider, Silhouette, Speedball II, Timeslip, Turbo I (Mickey Musashi), Turbo II (Mike Jeffries) Former Support Staff: Chord, Smartship Friday, Sprocket, Tai Known Allies: Air Force, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Generation X, Hybrid, Garthan Saal, Spider-Man, Ultragirl, X-Force Known Enemies: Advent, Folding Circle, Force of Nature, Heavy Mettle, Lady Sphinx, Psionex, Sphinx, Tai, Terrax, Volx Origin Place of Formation: New York First Appearance: Thor Vol. 1 #411, (chronologically) New Warriors Vol. 1 #1 Origin: Teenager Dwayne Taylor formed the team by bringing together a disparate group of teen heroes which he had observed. History The Original Team Dwayne Taylor's parents were murdered when he was a child, and so he swore vengeance on all criminals. In order to do so, he trained under the auspices of his guardians Tai and Chord, who maintained the multinational Taylor Foundation, set up by Dwayne's father before he died. When he had finally reached a plateau in which he felt he could begin the "fight," he organised a team of teenage heroes. Nova was a former Champion of Xandar whose powers were reactivated by Taylor throwing him off the roof of a tall building, Marvel Boy was the present-day version of Vance Astro of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Firestar was a former member of the Hellions, Namorita was Prince Namor's cousin, and Speedball was a teenager from Springdale, Connecticut who had been involved in an accident at a laboratory. Their first battle was against a reformed Terrax. The team's debut, and their subsequent battle with the Juggernaut, illicited the interest of Genetech, a superhuman research facility in Long Island. The company hired the Mad Thinker to research the new group of heroes to assist them in creating their own super-hero team. While preserving their secret identities, the Thinker did hand over the data he had collected, which resulted in the creation of Psionex, a quintet of superhumans who were under close observation by the scientists of Genetech. The Warriors traced the Thinker's intrusive research back to Genetech but were summarily contained by Psionex, who then took the opportunity to turn on Genetech. With the late arrival of Speedball, the Warriors were able to over-power the company's rogue super-team. However, the battle had garnered the attention of the news media, who televised the Warriors' departure from Genetech's facility. Meryet Karim happened to catch one of these broadcasts, and recognized Nova, which prompted her to step up the time table on her plans. In the interim, the Warriors continued to work together, foiling Star Thief, Force of Nature, the Bengal and others from causing harm. The team also survived a confrontation with the White Queen and her Hellions in an effort to take Firestar back. Soon after, Meryet Karim found the legendary Ka Stone. Using its reality-altering properties, she was able to re-shape history. Taking on the mantle of the Sphinx, she ruled a world where Egypt grew to be the dominant nation in an effort to win back her love, the original Sphinx. However, this reality was unraveled after Sayge, the embodiment of truth, revealed to Nova how Meryet had manipulated history. Following run-ins with the Puppet Master, the Hate Monger, rematches with Psionex and Terrax, and several other adventures, the team found themselves questioning each other and the motives behind their very formation. Night Thrasher discovered that the Taylor Foundation was involved in various companies and business dealings of questionable legality. His research led him to his mentor Chord, who tried to manipulate the rest of the team against him. Failing that, Chord attempted to kill himself. The Warriors then followed a messy trail from Gideon in Colorado to Tatsu'o and his Cybersamurai in Japan, and eventually to Tai in Cambodia. Previously thought to be nothing more than a humble housekeeper, she revealed herself to be a Cambodian sorceress who had killed Dwayne's parents and orchestrated the creation of the New Warriors for the sole purpose of sacrificing them to the Well of All Things. Night Thrasher successfully avenged the death of his parents by killing Tai. The journey to this truth came with sacrifices. Night Thrasher had attempted to disband the team in Japan, and remained away to clean up and reorganize the Taylor Foundation. Marvel Boy inadvertantly killed his father after years of physical and mental abuse, resulting in a highly publicized trial. The proceedings cost Marvel Boy his secret identity and his freedom; he was found guilty of negligent homicide and sentenced to the superhuman prison the Vault. But the team also found itself with new members. Silhouette, a mutant with shadow-melting powers, was the long lost daughter of Chord and a former crime-fighting partner with Night Thrasher and her brother Midnight's Fire before the formation of the New Warriors. Rage was an Avenger with super-strength that the Warriors had met while battling the Hate Monger. He had assisted the Warriors by stealing an Avengers Quinjet to get the team to Cambodia. This led to his eviction from the Avengers. The Warriors had also gained an ally in Darkhawk, an armored hero operating out of Queens. While Chord survived his attempt at suicide, he was physically unable to serve as the team's pilot or join them on missions. And so, Sprocket, a foul-mouthed and hardened soldier, was hired as his temporary replacement. Amid the return of the original Sphinx and a cosmic war with Magus, the team struggled to re-balance itself. During Night Thrasher's absence, Namorita had assumed leadership. Her strong activism brought the Warriors into an international incident within the country of Trans-Sabal, where they found themselves facing off against a more savage Force of Nature. Her inaction led to the death of a military leader that further complicated an already sticky political and civil war. Rather than further endanger themselves and worsen the situation, the team left. This defeat left Namorita and other members of the team ripe for possession by the rampant Darkforce energies of Darkling. Teaming up with Darkhawk, Dagger, Spider-Man, the Thing, and several Avengers, Nova, Firestar, and Speedball had to fight their own friends and fellow heroes before finally subduing Darkling with the help of Dr. Strange. During the battle, the heroes met a male Turbo (Mike Jeffries). Since they had met a female Turbo (Mickey Musashi) only recently, this caused some confusion. Nova later met with both Turbos to gauge their abilities, and agreed to give them probationary membership to the New Warriors. Namorita's final mistake came when she took a night off to party hard and ended up spending the night with a man she met at a club. That man ended up being Kimeiko Ashu, leader of the Poison Memories gang with a vendetta against Night Thrasher. Stealing Namorita's address book, Ashu struck at the Warriors like none had done before. Rage's grandmother was killed when a rocket launcher destroyed their home. Firestar's father was fatally wounded by gunshot. Nova's brother and Speedball's father were kidnapped. Ashu then called Namorita and demanded their surrender. Carlton LaFroyge, a classmate of Speedball who had figured out his secret identity and blackmailed his way onto the team, contacted Night Thrasher. Night Thrasher tracked down Ashu and freed the Warriors, as well as Nova's brother and Speedball's father. Rage then tracked down Ashu and killed him to avenge his grandmother's death. Rage faced criminal charges for killing Ashu, but the charges were dropped, as he was found to have acted in self-defense. Night Thrasher, who finally returned to the team, and Chord were assigned as Rage's legal guardians. Firestar's father survived his gunshot wound to the chest after a time in a coma. Nova's brother had lost a finger during the hostage situation, but was otherwise unharmed, as was Speedball's father. Namorita and Nova finally acknowledged an attraction to each other, but she felt she had to leave the team and return to Atlantis after the mistakes she had made. Not soon after, Nova (Garthan Saal) returned from the time stream. Before the New Warriors were formed, he had been tricked by the Avengers into entering the time stream in search of Nebula, who he blamed for destroying Xandar. His mental stability had been significantly weakened but he had sensed the return of Nova's powers. Super Nova tracked Nova down and leached the Centurion powers from him, killing Richard Rider in the process. Fortunately, the Xandarians Air-Walker and Firelord detected Super Nova's return and traveled to Earth to intervene. They met up with the Warriors and used their cosmic powers to resurrect Richard Rider. The group then pursued Super Nova into space, where he had launched an assault on Shi'ar forces. Super Nova capturing Richard Rider in the battle and teleporting to Xandar. When Super Nova attempted to absorb Richard Rider's soul to resurrect Xandar, Richard was able to absorb all of the Nova powers into himself, which resulted in the failure of his own sanity. Unbeknownst to any of the players however, a cloning process had already begun within the ruins of the planet Xandar which resulted in the resurrection of Queen Adora and other Xandarians. Adora was able to intervene and convince Richard Rider to use his powers to restore Xandar. He awoke with his Nova powers restored to a higher level than they had originally been, and the rank of Nova Centurion among the Nova Corps with the assingment of protecting Earth. The team then saw the return of two of their founding members. Marvel Boy was released from jail early due to good behavior. (He had helped guards squelch a prison riot.) He took on the mantle of Justice and went under-cover to investigate Shinobi Shaw and his involvement in the Upstarts. Namorita returned from Atlantis, but genetically altered. Some time ago, she had learned that she was a clone of her mother Namora. What she discovered while in Atlantis was that her genetic make-up had been mixed with ancient Atlantean DNA in an attempt to control some of Namora's unpleasant puberty years, due to her mutantcy. Unfortunately, this resulted in Namorita having an unpredicable genetic makeup that, in times of stress or sustained amounts of time in one environment, could alter her appearance and abilities. Taking the name Kymaera, she now had blue skin, black fish-like eyes, webbed-hands and feet, and an altered voice. The New New Warriors Following a team-up with X-Force, where the two groups unraveled the mystery of the Upstarts and the Gamesmaster, the active Warriors at the time (the original founders plus Silhouette and Rage) were teleported to various points in time and space by the original Sphinx, who had stolen the rest of his powers back from the lady Sphinx. Chord, Sprocket and Carlton (who had taken on the super-hero identity of Hindsight Lad, despite having no powers or combat abilities) formed a new team of Warriors to stop Sphinx from transforming all of Earth into his Egyptian kingdom. Bandit, Night Thrasher's illegitimate half-brother, insisted on leading the group, as he had begun secretly dating Silhouette. The group also consisted of established allies Darkhawk, the female Turbo, and Dagger, as well as Alex Power of Power Pack (who had earlier been identified as a potential member by Night Thrasher), and the de-powered Meryet Karim. The group traveled to Egypt, and engaged the Sphinx in combat just as Nova discovered his own ability to teleport. The new team then rescued Speedball, who had been teleported to the kinetic dimension that granted him his powers, and use him as a gateway to retrieve the rest of the Warriors. Both teams attacked the Sphinx until Sayge appeared to reflect the Warriors' pure motives onto the Sphinx, revealing the truth about himself. Meryet, who had loved the Sphinx since they met centuries ago, merged with the Sphinx and the two vanished to live their lives together. After saving the world from the Sphinx, the New Warriors became celebrities. But not all fourteen of them wanted to be a part of it. Following another encounter with the Mad Thinker, the Warriors re-thought what kind of heroes they wanted to be. Bandit and Silhouette left. The original members and Rage chose to stay together as a team and family. The rest of the "New" New Warriors admitted to other obligations, but agreed to help out when they could. Re-committed as a formal team, the New Warriors again confronted Psionex, who had accidentally killed a child while attempting to be heroes. But after a failed attempt to reconcile with Silhouette, Night Thrasher again pulled himself away from the team, this time taking Rage with him. Again, Namorita (as Kymaera) stepped up to a leadership position, sharing the responsibilities with Justice. A televised assault on Rwandan refugees in Goma, Zaire by a mysterious force prompted the Warriors to travel to Africa with the help of Sprocket. They arrived too late to help Air Force, a mercenary unit the Warriors had opposed before who had seen the error of their ways during a confrontation with Night Thrasher. Air Force were helping transport much-needed emergency aid to the refugees when the mysterious attack took place. Cardinal was the only one remaining from the encounter with the Soldiers of Misfortune, a six-member team that operated in pairs. The Warriors didn't fair much better. Like Sparrow of Air Force, all of the Warriors were captured by the Soldiers. Only Nova remained; he had been thrown from the battle field. Nova contacted Hindsight Lad to call in the reserve Warriors. Only the female Turbo and Alex Power (now using the name PowerPax with the stolen powers of his siblings) responded. Two hours later, the two joined Nova, Sprocket, and Cardinal in Africa. Using radio transmissions Nova's helmet had picked up during the fight, they tracked down the Soldiers and freed all of the the Warriors except for Kymaera, who along with Sparrow had been brainwashed to serve the ones behind the Soldiers of Misfortune, Protocol and his para-military organization Undertow. All of them teleported away before the Warriors could get Kymaera back. Blaming Night Thrasher for not being around when they could have used him, Nova forced him off the team. Only Rage chose to stick with Night Thrasher. Nova then became entangled in the Deathstorm plot that took him into outer space while Firestar, Justice and Speedball were asked by the US government to assist Sabra in guarding the Israeli Prime Minister during his visit to the United States. While Nova was successful in stopping the plot, Queen Adora deemed him unworthy to weild the Nova Centurion powers any longer. Garthan Saal replaced him as Earth's Nova, leaving Richard Rider powerless. Recently, the Warriors seemed to have disbanded again, or lapsed into a period of inactivity. The full extent of their actions are unknown, but they've been spotted many times fighting major crisises that have hit New York City. They were on-hand to fight the hordes of HYDRA who attacked the city under Baron Strucker's command, and several of the team (Nova, Namorita, Justice and Firestar) were mind-controlled and used as soldiers by the Purple Man during the 10 days he held the city hostage. They were forced to fight the New Thunderbolts in a failed attempt to keep the reformed villains from saving the city. Volume 3 However, Night Thrasher reunited the team to fight a crime wave of supervillains who'd moved to small-town America, out of the view of the hero community. His finances had been hit hard, so he made a deal with a production company to film the team's car trip and market it as a reality TV show. This didn't sit well with the rest of the team. Night Thrasher also brought a new member onto the team without explaining the real reason for his presence to the other Warriors. It turned out that the new member, Microbe, was an orphan that Night Thrasher had legally adopted. Another member, Debrii, was added to the team by network executives to add conflict for the reality TV show. Personal Lives The original New Warriors series was ground-breaking in that it touched on many issues not normally dealt with in comics. Marvel Boy was domestically abused by his mutant-hating father for years, and one day he lashed out and accidently killed his father with his telekinetic powers. (He went to prison for it, but was eventually given an early parole, and returned to the team as Justice.) Firestar and Justice were planning on getting married and having children, but discovered that Firestar's microwave powers were causing her to become sterile. Namorita once drunkenly slept with a man who turned out to be the leader of the Poison Memories gang, who stole the Warriors' personal information and launched an assault on their families. The Poison Memories shot and almost killed Firestar's father, cut off of Nova's brother's fingers off, and murdered Rage's grandmother, which led Rage to kill the gang's leader in cold blood. Firestar's friend was once raped by a boy at a party, and Firestar almost castrated him in anger. Trivia Marvel originally planned to spin off the new team formed during the "Time & Time Again" crossover into a new book, presumably retaining the title "New Warriors". The old members would then continue in a re-named "Warriors" title. However, sales diminished, and after the original Warriors were rescued, the "New" New Warriors mostly returned to their solo heroing. Statistics Total Members: 23, current roster: 5, largest roster ever: 14 Allies: 9 Enemies: 10 Miscellaneous Transportation: Currently, the team is travelling the country in a van, with a TV crew. However, historically, Dwayne owned a helicopter, piloted by Sprocket and Nova had a detachable hoverpod from his Xandar battleship orbiting Earth. Bibliography * New Warriors Vol. 1 #1-75 (March, 1991 – April, 1995) * New Warriors Vol. 2 #0-10 (October, 1999 – July, 2000) * New Warriors Vol. 3 #1-6 (July, 2005 – December, 2005) * New Warriors: Beginnings Trade Paperback (July, 1992) * New Warriors Aschan (1994) * Nova Vol. 1 #1-25 (September, 1976 – May, 1979) * Nova Vol. 2 #1-18 (January, 1994 – June, 1995) * Nova Vol. 3 #1-7 (May, 1999 – November, 1999) * Night Thrasher: Four Control #1-4 (October, 1992 – January, 1993) * Night Thrasher #1-21 (August, 1993 – April, 1995) * Firestar #1-4 (March, 1986 – June, 1986) * Justice: Four Balance #1-4 (September, 1994 – December, 1994) * Speedball #1-10 (September, 1988 – June, 1989) Related Articles * Excelsior * Generation X * X-Force External Links * New Warriors Continuity Conundrum * New Warriors Dot Com * New Warriors Message Board ---- Category:Teams Category:Active Teams Category:Good Teams Category:New Warriors